The following discussion is an archived debate. Please do not modify it. To request review of this BRFA, please start a new section at WT:BRFA. The result of the discussion was  Approved.

Operator: Bradv (talk · contribs · SUL · edit count · logs · page moves · block log · rights log · ANI search)

Time filed: 19:31, Tuesday, April 9, 2019 (UTC)

Automatic, Supervised, or Manual: supervised

Programming language(s): Python

Source code available: https://github.com/arbcom/ArbClerkBot

Function overview: Assist the clerks with announcements at the Arbitration Committee Noticeboard.

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate):

Edit period(s): Continuous

Estimated number of pages affected: 2+

Exclusion compliant (Yes/No): No

Already has a bot flag (Yes/No): No

Function details: This bot will handle announcements from the Arbitration Committee per the clerk procedures. It automatically creates the appropriate talk page section, adds the "Discuss" link at the bottom of the post, and crossposts to WP:AN and the talk pages of any users mentioned within the announcement. To prevent duplicate entries or the propagation of inappropriate posts, the bot checks to ensure that the last user to edit the noticeboard is an arbitrator or clerk before acting, and will not create sections with duplicate names on target pages. The clerks will be encouraged to verify that the crossposting was done correctly after each announcement.

Discussion[edit]

Hi @Bradv:, can you link to any arbcom related discussion where this was requested/desired? — xaosflux ^Talk 19:41, 9 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Xaosflux, there has been discussion about this on the clerks' mailing list, but none onwiki so far. Other clerks and arbitrators are welcome to comment here. – bradv🍁 19:46, 9 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Bradv: would you please drop a link in from the noticeboards in case anyone wants to know about this. — xaosflux ^Talk 19:53, 9 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Xaosflux, done. – bradv🍁 20:06, 9 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I've been following the clerks-l discussion, and the bot would take care of a number of tedious and time-consuming tasks. Miniapolis 20:00, 9 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Bradv: will you want to be using the 'bot' flag on these edits (hiding from recent changes/watchlists?) — xaosflux ^Talk 20:21, 9 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Announcements crossposted to AN or to user talk pages should not be marked with the bot flag, but the changes to the noticeboard could. This is identified in the code and tested on testwiki, but a bot flag is not strictly necessary for this task. – bradv🍁 20:26, 9 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Can you estimate your volume (in edits/interval)? — xaosflux ^Talk 20:21, 9 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

There have been 5 posts to ACN in the past month, each of which would have required 3 or 4 edits by this bot. – bradv🍁 20:26, 9 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I commented on the discussion on clerks-l and can say that this rather clearly had consensus among the Committee/clerks. I hadn't thought about the bot flag decision, but I'd lean toward no bot flag. There's really no need for one, since this bot wouldn't be doing any high-volume editing. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 20:42, 9 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

It seems unnecessary to run this every minute (as in the source code currently). Every five minutes is more reasonable with 15 minutes seeming well enough, considering the limited number of times per month the bot actually has to do a post. Running parser.parse every time is also a bit intensive; I'd suggest checking that the last edit made to WP:ACN occurred after the last run of the bot first.

TBH, while a bot would work of course, this seems more suited to a user script that clerks could use when posting an announcement. Galobtter (pingó mió) 09:28, 10 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Galobtter, thanks for your feedback. I had the interval set for 60 seconds for testing, but can certainly slow that down when this goes live. Checking to see if the page has changed before calling the parser is a good idea as well - I will make that change.

The main reason to implement this functionality as a bot rather than a script is so that it does not require extra action by the arbitrators when posting announcements to this page, or extra scripts for them to install. Urgent notices from the committee occasionally get posted here, and a clerk may not be around to do the actual crossposting. We also have plans to extend this bot into other areas of the clerk procedures, so it makes sense to set this up as a bit of a framework. – bradv🍁 14:37, 10 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hopefully I can help by weighing in as a current committee member. While a user script would not be unhelpful, I agree with Bradv that a bot is the superior solution. Among other factors, a script would need all committee members to install it – the bot works seamlessly in the background. AGK ■ 23:10, 13 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Approved for trial (50 edits or 30 days). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. go ahead and try it out, report back the results of your testing here when done. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:11, 14 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Bradv, AGK, and BU Rob13: just discovered the bot's first bug - Special:Diff/892477425 has an improper section link to the discussion, likely caused by the presence of a section link in the noticeboard post's heading. As far as I can tell, every edit, including the one to WP:A/N, needs to be fixed, either by escaping the brackets in the heading or more easily removing the link in the heading. I didn't fix them myself since they are official notices from the committee. Also, bug #2: should respect redirects, and follow them (and avoid double posting when it does follow them). See Special:Diff/892477395. Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk) 20:25, 14 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I migrated from wikitextparser to mwparserfromhell, which has the capability of stripping the template code from the title, and I added code to resolve the redirect. This has been updated and tested on testwiki, and should work fine unless GorillaWarfare finds a new way to trip me up. – bradv🍁 04:49, 15 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sure I'll think of something... GorillaWarfare (talk) 05:12, 15 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

How has the trial gone? Any issues? Any adjustments needed? — xaosflux ^Talk 01:35, 13 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Xaosflux: the trial has gone very well. Other than the above-mentioned hiccup on the first run, the bot has behaved perfectly. I'm considering adding a feature to use an invisible template to crosspost to pages other than mentioned users (such as BN), but that would be a minor change, and I haven't started coding it yet. – bradv🍁 05:12, 13 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Bradv: thanks for the note, will you need the "bot flag" on this account for this task? — xaosflux ^Talk 13:14, 13 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Xaosflux, no, the bot flag is not required. I would like to have IPBE made permanent though - it can be removed if we end up migrating this to tool labs. – bradv🍁 13:26, 13 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Bradv: unless you are going to operate this behind a tor endpoint, we can just do the bot flag since it includes ipblockexmept and exentededconfirmed already. You certainly don't have to make the EDITS as 'bot' (and should make sure you are not if not intended) OK? — xaosflux ^Talk 14:00, 13 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Xaosflux, I did not realize that the bot flag includes IPBE, but that makes perfect sense. If we go with the bot flag, I'll make sure the edits aren't flagged as bot edits. – bradv🍁 14:07, 13 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

 Approved. Closing crat, please remove +IPBE and +EC when issuing +BOT to cleanup the settings. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:12, 13 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. To request review of this BRFA, please start a new section at WT:BRFA.